Mediaboss Marketing

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

A well-thought-out marketing strategy is essential if you want to stand out and ensure the growth of your business.

For most people, marketing means advertising-in magazines, on billboards, social media channels, or on television. But marketing is much more. In fact, it encompasses so many tactics (social marketing, email marketing, referral marketing, etc.) that we can't explain all of the elements of the marketing process in this one post.

However, we will shed some light on this broad topic and focus on:

Sounds good? Great Let's get started.

Table of Contents

What Is Marketing?

There are as many fish in the sea as there are definitions of marketing.

So, how do you explain marketing?

At a fundamental level, marketing is the process of understanding your consumer as well as building or maintaining customer relationships.

We have dug out a few quotes from the World Wide Web to give you a better idea of what marketing actually is.

Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

- American Marketing Association

According to Philip Kotler, the 'Father of Modern Marketing', it is ...

...the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best, and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.

If you do not work in Marketing, then you still may be wondering: What do people in marketing do? As the definitions above try to explain, marketers try to attract customers that might be interested in buying a firm's product or service through highly targeted messaging and communications or advertising. Marketers use several different channels to try and reach consumers, and there are certain marketing terms that often pop up when explaining these various methods of messaging delivery, for example:

But what exactly do they mean?

Keep reading to find out.

7 Marketing Terms Everyone Should Know

By now, you already might have sensed that marketing is a complex topic consisting of numerous concepts and terms. Especially for beginners, this can be a bit overwhelming and confusing.

Therefore, we have prepared a short glossary of seven important marketing terms which every marketer should be familiar with.

1. Traditional Marketing

Simply put, traditional marketing establishes a connection with the customer via offline advertising channels, e.g.:

Marketers engaging in traditional advertising practices aim is to reach the masses-after all, the more people are watching your TV ad or reading an article about your product or service, the higher the chance you will attract more leads and boost your sales.

2. Digital Marketing

In comparison with traditional methods, a digital marketing strategy refers to online marketing efforts.

When a marketing department is focused on engaging and reaching potential new or existing customers via the Internet, the team will be using marketing channels like:

Your customers may only be active on online channels, offline channels, or, most likely, a mix of both. To figure out what's the right mix of traditional and digital marketing to engage in, companies often hire a digital marketing agency to help them reach their target audience so that they can build strong customer relationships.

3. Direct Marketing

Direct marketing can be seen as a presentation of your company, product, or service to your target customers. It aims to find, reach and motivate customers to take action-by buying your product. Oftentimes, the call-to-action for the consumer is the buy or try your product or service, which isn't necessarily the same with traditional and digital marketing campaigns that may focus more on brand awareness.

Direct marketing includes not only traditional (TV commercials, radio spots, magazine ads, etc.) as well as digital marketing strategies (email marketing, search engine advertising, etc.).

Trade shows, conferences, and fairs can also serve as great occasions for promoting your business directly to customers.

Here an example of direct marketing:

Teen magazine subscribers are presented with skin care display advertisements on Facebook, Instagram & Co.

Why?

Because it is commonly known that teenagers often struggle with their skin and are therefore more likely to buy a skin care product compared to other age groups.

4. Inbound Marketing

In simple terms, inbound marketing (or pull marketing) is the process of helping your target audience find you and your business, for example via search engines.

It is focused on nurturing customer relationships, building the brand and raising brand awareness by gaining the trust of (potential) customers.

You can do this for example by creating relevant, educational, entertaining content. If you establish some kind of communication with the target audience, if people are engaging with your content, the chance of them converting to customers increases.

When done correctly, inbound marketing can give you much better results than for example traditional marketing methods.

Why?

Because your customers don't feel like they are being sold to.

Here some examples of inbound marketing:

Tip: Already a simple engagement in a discussion on social media platforms or posting a link to an informative article can work miracles for your business.

5. Outbound Marketing

In contrast, outbound marketing (also known as push marketing) consists of traditional methods, such as direct mail, cold calling, radio or television ads, telemarketing etc.

In other words: A marketer reaches out to people and establishes a communication with them to see if they're interested in a product or service.

Another term for it is interruption marketing.

And we all have experienced it at some point

...Being interrupted by an unwanted telemarketing call while enjoying a delicious meal or a cup of coffee. Sounds familiar?

6. B2B Marketing (Business-to-Business)

B2B marketing (business-to-business) focuses on-as the name already suggests-selling products or services directly to other businesses and their decision makers.

Business-to-business marketing is essential when one company needs the services/products of another company to improve or maintain its operations.

This can be everything from a table management software for restaurants to office spaces to rent.

7. B2C Marketing (Business-to-Consumer)

B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing does not sell to other businesses but to customers for personal use-from clothes, electronic devices, smartphones, sunglasses to gardening services and much more.

Now that you know the common marketing terms, it is time to answer the following question

What Is the Main Purpose of Marketing?

There are many articles debating the role of marketing and why every business needs it.

We could provide you with an extensive list of bullet points demonstrating the importance of marketing, however, we have chosen to keep it simple and straightforward.

The purpose of marketing is to:

Tip: If you want to stand out from the rest and convey your message in accordance with your company's principles, a striking creative is worth investing in.

But wait a minute, isn't making profit, building brand awareness and customer relationships also the purpose of sales and advertising?

Ergo...are marketing, sales and advertising the same thing?

Not quite.

Marketing vs. Sales

Although many might think of marketing and sales as synonyms, there is a significant difference between them.

While sales works directly with prospects to get them to convert to customers, marketing is concerned with sparking interest in a product or service.

Think of marketing as the forerunner for the sales team. With the marketing process you convey to the target audience

After the people become interested in your offer, the sales team takes the lead by

As you can see, the terms are not interchangeable, however, both departments have to work closely together to make it work (pun intended)

Marketing vs. Advertising

If marketing is a cake, advertising is a piece of it.

The marketing process is very complex as it entails various elements, such as

Marketing is essential in every stage of a company's selling journey. It uses different distribution or marketing channels, teams, social media etc. to determine its target audience, communicate with it and build brand loyalty.

Advertising on the other hand is just one component of marketing, where companies pay to spread awareness about a service or product (e.g. on TV, social media platforms).

Now that you know the difference between the concept of marketing, sales and advertising, it is time to shift our attention to something equally important the customer.

Marketing & the Role of the Customer

The purpose of a business is to get and keep a customer. Without customers, no amount of engineering wizardry, clever financing, or operations expertise can keep a company going.-Theodore Levitt (Economist & Harvard Business School Professor)

The fact is, that there would be no businesses without people willing to buy the offered goods.

And marketing is instrumental in making sure companies succeed in attracting and keeping customers. It generates value.

Those are the goals of marketing.

Let us briefly tap into each of the steps.

Before a company is able to create something of value, it has to identify the prospective customers and what the customer needs. One way to go about this is with the help of a social listening tool as the one from Meltwater. Don't worry, we will cover the advantages of such a tool in more detail later on.

The next phase is to satisfy those customer needs by launching a product or service addressing them. Make sure the customers feel like they will benefit from it. Satisfied customers are happy with the value they get for the price they pay (customer value).

The last step for the marketing department is to retain the customers so they don't switch to the competition. How? By constantly following the marketing trends, collecting competitive data and creating new products which are adapted to the ever changing desires of the target market.

But did you know that customers can also be a very powerful marketing tool?

Customers as Your #1 Marketing Tool

Have you recently had an amazing brunch at a new bistro and just want to share your opinion about it online?

No problemo.

There are numerous websites specifically designed just for that.

Service providers like hairdressers, restaurateurs, personal trainers, dentists etc. often ask their customers to post reviews (user-generated content)about their experience on social media channels or on one of the recommendation sites like Yelp & Co. Product providers use the same tactic.

Although you can risk getting a bad review, companies usually benefit from reviews about the authentic experience their customers share.

There is another upside to it. By reading reviews, businesses can get valuable feedback and see what they are doing right and what needs to be improved. Consequently, they can tweak their products or services to match customer needs.

And speaking about customer needs.some restaurants, motels & Co. clearly didn't manage to satisfy them, as the following video shows

Source: jennxpenn

After having a good laugh, let's take a look at different types of marketing.

Ready to dive into it?

Link:
Meltwater B : What Is Marketing & Why Your Business Can't Do Without It - Marketscreener.com